Site hosting Ai Weiwei petition hit with cyberattack

Change.org
is back up and running after what the site said was a cyberattack that came
from within China.
Here's the site's announcement that was running on its homepage earlier today:

Change.org
is currently experiencing intermittent downtime due to a denial of service attack from China
on our web site. It appears the attack is in response to a Change.org petition signed by nearly 100,000 people worldwide,
who are standing against the detention of Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei.
Despite this attack on our members and our platform, we will continue to stand
with the supporters of Ai Weiwei to defend free speech and the freedom to
organize for people everywhere. In the meantime, we apologize for any
inconvenience.

Change.org is a well-known site for activist groups working
for social change. It offers an easy way to launch petitions in support of
injustices like that of Ai's arrest. The petition calling for his release was
closing in on 94,000 signatures when the attack came.

CPJ has covered
Ai's case extensively, including calling on the U.S. State Department and
the European Union to pressure China's
government for his release. Ai is among the most prominent of China's
government critics, and commented frequently on injustice, including detentions
of fellow dissidents, in blogs and on his widely followed Twitter feed. Ai's
detention comes as an
unusually high number of activists, bloggers, online journalists, and writers
have disappeared or been detained. The tightening on dissident voices coincided
with unsigned calls for anti-government protests in China,
inspired by revolutions in the Middle East and North
Africa, that appeared online.

Bob Dietz, coordinator of CPJ’s Asia Program, has reported across the continent for news outlets such as CNN and Asiaweek. He has led numerous CPJ missions, including ones to Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka. Follow him on Twitter @cpjasia and Facebook @ CPJ Asia Desk.

Comments

Hello, there seems to be a problem on the petition site. Have tried signing petition, with comment, would not accept and was told timed out! Please let me know of any problem you identify and any alternative action you feel relevant. Would like to support fully.

Excellent work you are doing, lets go for it together as that is the way forward!